Please discuss the Motorcycle.com article First Ride: 2008 Buell 1125R in our Motorcycle Forums below. Use the reply button to let others know your comments or feedback on the article. Constructive criticism is always appreciated, along with your thoughts and personal opinions on the bikes and products we have tested.

"Subsequently, a lighter wheel can be used, with lighter steering as the benefit. I can only hope other makes will grasp this concept, soon."

Not quite. The ZTL system makes for HEAVIER steering...

It reduces the unsprung weight of the wheel (lighter spokes, which makes the suspension happier), but it increases the rotational inertia (larger diameter brake disk). Thus at higher speeds, the wheel resists changing direction more, effectively acting as a speed sensitive damper.

Until Honda came out with the electronic damper, it was the best solution for speed-sensitive damping (the electronic damper allows a non-linear rate, unlike the ZTL which is a linear-rate speed-sensitive damper)

Its why the previous buells were able to get away with such little rake without a damper: the wheel is a damper with its greater rotational inertia.

I can't help it. I've been trying to avoid writing negative things in these forums but every time I see this bike I'm appalled at how freaking ugly it is. The XB's on the other hand are truly one of the nicest looking bikes around. How they managed to take what was basically an XB and screw it up so bad in the "style/design" department,...it's beyond me. Well actually it's not beyond me.

1. Fairing is way too wide.
2. Side scoops look like something designed in an 8th grade shop class by someone who was inspired by their mom's Tupperware bowl set.
3. Underslung exhaust appears to have been designed by the same 8th grade shop class with inspiration from......I have no idea.

Who's the Buell expert out there? There was a reference: "instead of the other Buells’ Italian Verlicchi chassis" that surprised me. I certainly don't know Buells as well as HDs, but I had no idea they sourced a frame! I always thought their innovative frames was their forte. I guess you learn something new every day, if you stay relatively sober. Details? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller??

Who's the Buell expert out there? There was a reference: "instead of the other Buells’ Italian Verlicchi chassis" that surprised me. I certainly don't know Buells as well as HDs, but I had no idea they sourced a frame! I always thought their innovative frames was their forte.

Guessing here, but it could be that Verlicchi is the maker, not the designer? Or that Buell had the idea and then contracted with Verlicchi to put it into metal.

Who's the Buell expert out there? There was a reference: "instead of the other Buells’ Italian Verlicchi chassis" that surprised me. I certainly don't know Buells as well as HDs, but I had no idea they sourced a frame! I always thought their innovative frames was their forte. I guess you learn something new every day, if you stay relatively sober. Details? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller??

Buell is usually the designer of all things Buell, but the frame was "made" by Verlicchi. Now an American firm is punching them out.

__________________"If I had to live my life over, I'd live over a saloon." --W.C. Fields

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